Conventional print shops are organized in a manner that is functionally independent of the print jobs, the print job mix, and the total volume of print jobs passing through the system. Further, print shops typically organize their job processing resources into separate departments, each department corresponding to a particular process that is performed in completing a print job (e.g., printing department, finishing department, mailing department). When a print job arrives at a conventional print shop, the print job sequentially passes through a number of departments. Once the print job is processed by a first department, the print job is placed in a queue for the next department. The queue is sometimes in the form of a temporary storage facility. This process continues until the print job makes its way through the corresponding set of departments, and is completed.
There are a number of limitations with conventional print shops. For example, the equipment employed in conventional print shops is not well interfaced with internal computer systems. In addition, the equipment is often arranged in an inefficient layout. Typical arrangements employ machines that require operators to load/unload jobs, monitor job progress, pass jobs on to a next station, and commence a next job. In between each of the steps, each job is commonly stored in a storage area awaiting the next step. As a result, excess inventories may accumulate and add to the overall job costs. The lack of real time information concerning the contemporaneous state of the machines and the jobs leads to less efficient plant utilization, and lower productivity. Further, this lack of information does not permit jobs to be evenly distributed among available machines for load balancing thus creating more inefficiencies.